anchor rachel maddow, nbc chief foreign news correspondent richard engel draws on a decade of reporting from the front lines on the war on terror. together they examine what america has done for national security since 9/11 to itself and the world.

>> when you think about the costs of all the actions that have been taken over the last ten years we often calculate it the number of soldiers killed, the amount of money spent. in the region, they count it in the number of dead muslims. that's how it's counted in the middle east. and just do a little bit of quick math. in iraq, about 150,000 iraqis were killed. and some of them were killed by u.s. forces. more were killed by iraqis themselves. but that doesn't really matter in the minds of the region because they all died as a result of the u.s.-led war. afghanistan. maybe another 35 40000. several,000 more in pakistan. when you add it all up we're talking about 200,000 dead muslims as a result of the u.s. war on terrorism do. you make america safer by having that many dead people, that much anger, that much frustration, that number of graves. does that really make america

safer, or does that just create more radicals that the world is going to have to deal with? >> as the arab world and the muslim world more broadly is changing now ten years after 9/11, you see the revolutions, we see the populace uprises. we see the rudderlessness of islamist movements where there are popular uprises that have nothing to do with them. >> tunisia was a huge blow to al qaeda. much more than iraq was. the tunisian fruit vendor who set fire to himself and started the arab spring did more to harm al qaeda than the entire war in iraq which may have helped al qaeda and certainly allowed al qaeda to attract more recruits. >> what is the next vision for american intervention in muslim countries after this? >> it will be secret. lots and lots of small secretive operations. think pakistan. think somalia. think yemen. drones, special forces, jsoc,

we're going to be not hearing about these organizations a lot, but they're going to be very busy. jeddah, saudi arabia, july 2007. the city on the red sea has long been a gateway for pilgrims traveling to mecca, islam's holiest site. in jeddah, we immediate haled suleyman. suleyman was a fight were osama bin laden in afghanistan. he has just been released from four years in u.s. detention at guantanamo bay. he shows us his bizarre gitmo memorabilia. >> this is my glasses guantanamo. >> his personal letters redacted by the military. anything that looked like a code was erased. >> this is blacked out. >> this is blacked out? this was your prisoner number on top? jjae -- >> 155.

>> suleyman admits he was a trained fighter for bin laden. >> i started from getting training on the weapons the artillery, mines, explosives electronics. >> suleyman was so dedicated, he stayed with bin laden in the mountains of tora bora in afghanistan, even as the americans were bombing. >> that's from tora bora? >> that's all i have. >> when you were with bin laden 234 your bunker, you were listening to the news on this radio. >> yes. >> suleyman says he is now reformed after graduating from a unique saudi rehabilitation program for islamic radicals that looks amazingly like a summer camp. at a campus outside riyadh, religious extremists swim to relax. play soccer and video games. the goal is to wean them off

extremism in a friendly, secure environment. 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were from saudi arabia. the saudi government says the rehabilitation program has largely been successful in diffusing the anger of these men, whom saudi arabia considers misguided youth. >> we try to find jobs for them. so we are doing our best that these guys become normal people live in the society. >> the saudi government gave ahled suleyman $20,000 to furnish his apartment and paid for him to get married. suleyman also offers a rare look inside al qaeda. suleyman says bin laden himself was surprised that 9/11 was so successful. bin laden didn't think the twin towers would actually go down. >> even bin laden was shocked when the building fall down.

>> but bin laden miscalculated what happened next. after 9/11, the cia and u.s. special forces go to war. the operations are mostly done in secret. it's america's first response to the biggest terrorist attack in its history. the secret missions are successful. bin laden and the taliban are driven from power, quickly and decisively. this little-known conflict in afghanistan was led by hank curmpton. he commanded operations at the cia. negative, one else had a plan. and the president endorsed the cia's plan. and that's why the cia took the lead. >> as the twin towers are still smoldering, the cia takes charge of the biggest clandestine operation in its history. >> so within days, the cia had teams on the ground in afghanistan. >> the first teams were only cia. the first team, the jaw breaker

team less than 10. and the reason for this was we simply didn't have enough men to do more than that. >> the eight to ten-man team's first goal was to secure local allies in northern and central afghanistan, where the taliban is deeply unpopular. the cia teams buy a lot of friends. >> we had people with great tactical skills language skills and people that understood afghanistan and the afghan people. >> they were handing out suitcases full of cash? >> that was a big part of it. but they wanted the taliban to be overthrown. they wanted al qaeda and those foreign invaders out of their country. >> but curmpton says the suitcases filled with millions of dollars came with a big commitment. the afghan allies had to actually kill taliban and al qaeda members to be paid. >> and it was more than just

their word. we expected them to engage in lethal operations against al qaeda and those taliban and other afghans that decided not to join us. >> the combination of cia units u.s. special forces afghan militias, and american air strikes is devastating. the taliban start to run and abandon al qaeda. >> and they leave us, and they said we are sorry. >> in november 2001 kabul falls, just two months after 9/11. girls are free to go to school. the repressive regime that hosted bin laden is defeated. a month later even kandahar, the taliban's hometown, is overthrown. >> when kandahar fell that was the last urban stronghold of the

taliban and al qaeda, less than 90 days after 9/11 there were only 410 americans on the ground in afghanistan. about 110 cia and approximately 300 special forces. >> 400 americans. >> right. >> on the ground, and they toppled the government of the taliban. >> well, 400 americans that were in partnership with our afghan allies. and that was really the key. >> the cost to america to drive out the taliban? less than a billion dollars and one u.s. cia officer killed. >> relatively speaking it was a very cheap and low-risk victory. what happened after that? >> well, i believe that we as a nation and as a global community failed to secure that victory. >> the quick victory in afghanistan wasn't secured in large part because of pakistan and its porous border. al qaeda and the taliban crossed

over and established a new sanctuary next to afghanistan. and then in what has been called an even greater strategic mistake, the united states found a new mission, a new war in iraq. al qaeda felt it was given a second chance. >> we never thought that american will do that you know, and get involved in that war. >> was iraq a gift to al qaeda? >> yeah, of course. yeah. it was gift. >> a gift because iraq would inspire a new generation of al qaeda fighters. coming up, inside al qaeda. we used to think satan was the enemy of islam. now we know it's america, he says.

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for many americans, the iraq war is counted in troop deployment. american soldiers killed then injured. humvees attacked, and america's new three-letter nightmare. the ied. but in the middle east, the iraq war is measured very differently. sometimes it is counted one girl at a time. on the outskirts of the syrian capital damascus in 2007, at a nightclub called the lighthouse girls parade on a stage. they're dancers, and some are prostitutes. some of the girls are under 13 years old. a few look younger than 10.

they're refugees who escaped the war in iraq. their situation is so desperate some of the girls' fathers sit in the audience to negotiate a price for their daughter. in a nearby apartment we meet donya, a refugee prostitute from baghdad in her mid-20s. she doesn't want her face to be shown. she seems terrified. she chain smokes. her hands tremble. she says some of the iraqi girls are gang-raped by pimps to break them down into accepting prostitution. god punished those who stole iraq's dignity, she says. syrian authorities close down the lighthouse. but in damascus, often said to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world the damage to america's image is already done.

he doesn't seem like an al qaeda supporter. he imports candy. but he became convinced muslims need al qaeda to fight back against the united states. he points to abu ghraib, the daily car bombings in baghdad and the refugees as evidence why al qaeda is necessary. >> translator: i think 100% al qaeda defends muslim rights, he says. >> to find out how the al qaeda militants operator we travel to the hashemite kingdom on the edge of the desert. here al qaeda cells begin with men like abu zal. he is an unassuming pet shop owner, under five feet tall. but abu zal fought in iraq, and then returned to jordan.

he brought back a phone book full of the numbers of other fighters. abu zal is part of a grassroots recruiting network and underground railroad for islamic fighters in iraq. "we used to think satan is the enemy of islam. now we know it's america," he says. in an apartment in the jordanian capital amman, we meet an al qaeda cell. small, secretive, hard to detect. a single fighter and 19 gerald jafar, who wants to be a suicide bomber. "i was watching television and seeing my brothers in palestine and iraq being killed," he says. fair foot with a watch that ironically says "exit." "god loves martyrs and loves those who fight for him," he

says. his handler has huge scarred hands and red eyes. the color is from hate, he says. after five hours, we meet the al qaeda cell leader, abdullah al mahajur. he is wanted by police, sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison. in hiding he only agrees to be filmed from behind. he shows me videos of militants beheading foreigners that he makes and distributes. i asked him how americans could consider him anything but a terrorist. what do americans say when american planes bomb and kill people? what do they say about that, he asks? he says al qaeda changed after 9/11 that the group is no longer centrally commanded. it operates more like a franchise. al qaeda has become a brand name.

al qaeda is like a mother company with branchs with their own employees and their own operations he says. the branchs even raise their own money. and this new al qaeda incorporated, al qaeda the brand name moves beyond iraq, in search of other failed states. mogadishu, may 2010. al qaeda has found a new home operating through local allies in the most dangerous country on earth. flying into the capital of mogadishu isn't for the faint of heart. african express is one of only two airlines operating in somalia. it's easy to see why so few risk the trip. sitting on the runway is the wreckage of a crashed plane. a few thousand african peacekeepers and a weak u.s.-backed government struggle to maintain order in mogadishu.

their enemy is a group called al shabaab. it has pledged allegiance to al qaeda. it's part of the al qaeda brand name. al shabaab is a terrifying mix of al qaeda's ideology and african child soldiers. the majority of the militiamen terrorizing this city are under 16 years old teenagers, empowered by the chaos to enter people's homes, lash women for dressing inappropriately, and chop off the limbs of accused thieves. under a thorn tree, we meet two of al shabaab's victims, 20-year-old abdel hadi and ismail abdellah. both claim they were accused of theft. the boys' right hands and left feet were amputated as their parents were forced to watch.

"i tried to call out to my mother and say please, somebody save me" abdi says. one woman had a miscarriage as she watched as abdellah. the young men show me how they stretch their wrists and ankles before slicing them off with a butchers knife. but somalia experts say is also a threat to the united states. somalia's al qaeda franchise is attracting american recruits. it has american among its commanders. alabama native omar al hamami is one of al shabaab's leading recruiters. using internet videos. >> knock down to her niece. >> and wrap songs. u.s. counterterrorism official says more than 50 americans have

travelled to somalia for training and to fight, including for the first time in u.s. history american suicide bombers. the american connection has raised flags at both the fbi and the cia. >> i think you could characterize this as a grade a problem. the reasons are simple. the number of times you get a substantial number of american kids i don't care whether they're somalis or a kid from lincoln, nebraska traveling overseas to train with people who are connected with al qaeda in these kinds of numbers, that is very rare. >> somalia is a perfect al qaeda sanctuary. but it's not the only one. from yemen to north africa southeast asia, and across europe, security experts say al qaeda has cells or resources in 100 countries, including the united states. coming up, for some, the war on terror is big business.

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once again rachel maddow and richard engel. >> when you're in the dubai airport, which is kind of like the emerald city, right. >> the hub for the entire middle east. >> the hub for the entire middle east. a massive airport. it's so glitzy and so gilded. and then you get to the exit gates going to kabul afghanistan. and you see it's a lot of afghan people, what you would expect afghan people who look like and enormous 6'5" americans with arms the size of hams. >> tattoos up the arms. or you have the guys who are there as the engineers and the consultants. what are they doing here? what are these people doing here? and there is always many more of them than soldiers. we sent a lot of troops too. >> yeah. >> we sent hundreds of thousands of troops rotated through just iraq or afghanistan, and hundreds of thousands of contractors went through. is it because these soldiers weren't able to do things? or is it just because it was

good business? and that's what it was. it was huge business. >> one of the key strategic military issues that every planner has to consider is supply lines. you cut somebody off from their supply lines and you have isolated the fighting force to the point of atrophy weakness and eventual defeat. american supply lines are essentially private. they're run for private by multinational companies. >> a lot of the actual setting up of the bases themselves, the barriers, the walls, the sandbags, that's done privately. and is that necessary? does that really need to be done privately? >> the salaries paid to particularly security contractors, who have high-level clearances from their days in the military or at the cia have those things created an offramp for senior level and highly trained personnel out of u.s. service that is detrimental to u.s. service? >> of course. if you're a soldier and you're in iraq or afghanistan, and you're guarding a base and you're seeing a contractor doing

pretty much the same job, and he is make ten times your salary well, why would you stay in the army then? >> taxpayers on the hook for the training, and the taxpayer is on the hook for your ten-times salary once you get out. it's a great plan for the companies, but it doesn't seem to make much sense for the country. in the first gulf war in 1991, the retreating iraqi army sets fire to over 500 kuwaiti oil wells and connective pipelines creating an environmental disaster. as six million barrels born a day, four american companies dodge land mines and unexploded bombs to extinguish the flames. over a decade later, in the lead-up to the next war with iraq the george w. bush administration anticipates similar tactics by saddam, that he will once again attack kuwait's oil fields, or torch his own to slow down advancing u.s. forces. for $2 million, the world's second largest oil field services corporation halliburton is hired to draft terms for a

contract to fight oil fires before the war. days before the invasion, officials convene a high-level meeting at the pentagon to arrange contingents for the firefighting contract. halliburton attends and the decision is made in addition halliburton will also get the contract itself for up to $7 billion. without competition, halliburton is designated uniquely capable of providing the firefighting services detailed in the contract uniquely capable, even though other u.s. companies entirely performed the same task during the previous war. also at the pentagon meeting, pointing out the impropriety of halliburton being present while decisions about their contract are being made is bunny greenhouse. >> i said they have to leave, you know because the group now is getting into things and giving them advantage as to

where our budgets are and what we are planning to do. i was responsible in that the corps of engineers was going to be doing a lotf that work that they were talking about, you know, to make sure that we did not give them any advantage. >> do you feel like that ethos was undermined in the lead-up to the iraq war, that there was an expectation that good practices and ethical practices in procurement wouldn't be followed? >> it could have been that folks were thinking that whoever was going to handle this contract would just simply be asleep at the switch and look the other way and not highlight, you know, the improprieties. but i was not going to do that. >> as a 21-year veteran of government contracting, the army corps of engineer's top civilian official, bunny greenhouse is troubled by how some war contracts are being handled. >> that is high dollars going to

kbr. none competed. or if it was contract that was competed, once it came to an end, it would just go on for another year and another year and so on. so i sent up letters to the department of the army to let them know that this kind of thing was going on. they should not have been able to follow on with the contract because it was just like writing their own check. >> in the end oil fires are not set in saddam's oil fields or anywhere else in the region. but halliburton convinces the pentagon, again in a sole source, no competition framework to convert its oil field firefighting contract into a contract for generic logistical support for the u.s. military. halliburton eventually becomes the largest private contractor in iraq, securing three huge multi-year, multipurpose contracts. the logistics of a multicontract to support military operations

had been pioneered in the 1990s by the department of defense headed then by secretary dick cheney. the u.s. military would no longer peel its own potatoes or do its own laundry or do the central work of maintaining its own supply lines that work would now be done for profit. dick cheney leaves the pentagon in 1993. by 1995, he is ceo of the company granted during the clinton administration one of those massive combined logistics contracts in the balkans, halliburton. mr. cheney leaves halliburton in 2000 to become vice president. but as vice president, he continues to receive deferred compensation from the company for services rendered before his departure, valued between a half million and $1 million. coming up, making a killing. the business of the war on terror. [ male announcer ] the most headroom per dollar of any car in america. from $10,990. the all-new nissan

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i'm chris jansing and we're following a developing story at jfk airport in new york. an american airlines flight from l.a. has landed, escorted by fighter jets at the request of the pilot out of an abundance of caution after a situation developed on board. three passengers apparently locked themselves in a bathroom and were quote not compliant with the crew when they were told to get out. the men were in their seats and following instructions by the time the plane landed however. police and fbi have met the plane atta gate, and we will keep you posted on any developments there on this anniversary of course of 9/11. and now back to "day of destruction." as large iraq war contracts are awarded to halliburton and other private companies from services ranging from reconstruction to security, civilian private sector workers flood into the war zone alongside u.s. troops.

in march 2004, four men working for the contractor blackwater are attacked and killed in fallujah, sent on a supply mission without adequate maps or convoy protection, the blackwater employees are ambushed and killed. their bodies are hung by insurgents from the bridge. after that u.s. and allied forces would twice storm fallujah. the second offensive becoming the bloodiest battle of the entire iraq war. in september 2007 blackwater contractors shoot and kill 17 iraqi civilians in the square in baghdad after they say their convoy came under attack. citing eyewitness reports, the government conclude the contractors fired on civilians without provocation and demands that blackwater personnel be banned from the country. the u.s. military, having shifted to a counter insurgency strategy of building support for the local government complains

that cowboy tactics by private security contractors interfere with the overall u.s. military mission. brigadier general carl horst tells the "washington post" these guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff there is no authority over them so you can't come down on them hard when they escalate force. they shoot people and someone else has to deal with the aftermath. it happens all over the place. >> we love money we love war we love cheney even more. >> contracting also starts to become a focus of the anti-war and anti-corruption critics of george w. bush administration. it's a stark contrast between no competition, cost-plus guaranteed profit contracts for politically well-connected firms and the austere combat conditions for u.s. troops. >> there is more tonight on the issue of insufficient armor for u.s. soldiers and marines in iraq. >> why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal to armor

our vehicles and why don't we have those sources readily available to us? >> it's a matter of production and capability of doing it. as you know you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time. >> thank you! >> by the 2007 political primary election season candidate barack obama has introduced the transparency and accountability in military and security contracting act of 2007. democratic presidential candidate hillary clinton proposes eliminating private security contractors from iraq altogether. but by the time the election is over, obama is president and clinton is secretary of state. the contractors are nowhere near gone. clinton's department of state alone in 2010 more than doubles its roster of private security contractors from 2700 to between 6,000 and 7,000. by the summer of 2011 contractors for the defense

department alone nearly equals the number of u.s. troops in afghanistan. in iraq, with u.s. troop levels drawing down, the number of contractors exceeds the number of troops. with the political heat off of them contractors are usually invisible, only surfacing in scandal. in 2007, 21-year-old ephraim de viroli secures a $300 million american contract to supply munitions to afghanistan forces. after repackaging and selling illegal to buy chinese weapons, he is indicted on federal fraud and conspiracy charges. he pleads guilty to one count of conspiracy and is sentenced to four years in prison. the other charges against him are dropped. in afghanistan in 2009, these wild pictures surface of private contractors from armor group. they were signed to guard the u.s. embassy in kabul. the contract is reupped, despite the scandal. a report by the special inspector general for iraq reconstruction in april 2011

concludes that misspent dollars run into the tens of billions for iraq reconstruction alone. but the starkest impact of the huge expansion of for-profit contracting for national security after 9/11 is the wedge it has driven between incurring the costs of war and paying that cost. there remains real debate over the number of u.s. troops needed and serving in iraq and afghanistan, but no real debate over the total number of contractors the u.s. is paying for as well. and the human pain and suffers of contractors themselves is also invisible there are no official statistics on the number of contractors killed or wounded in war zones. allegations over human trafficking and forced labor and worse among contractors does not merit many american headlines. and it doesn't stop the contracts flowing. on the no-bid, no-deadline contracts, bunny greenhouse continues to question, to warn, and to report as a thorn in the

side of the corps of engineers throughout the war, her immediate is demotion. in july 2011 a u.s. district court in washington approves a settlement awarding greenhouse $970,000 and full restitution of lost wages, compensatory damages and attorneys fees. greenhouse remains convinced she did the right thing. >> they got the wrong idea about whistle blowing. it's not about a person gaining any money or gaining anything and i'm not a snitch. it's about making sure that there can be truth and honesty. >> coming up, taking prisoners in america's new war. >> slammed the face first on to the concrete familiar, and i kept pushing his head down. [ bird chirps ] [ bird squawks ] ♪ ♪ [ bird screeching ] ♪ ♪ [ elevator bell dings ] [ sighs ] how mad is

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for all of the decisions that america has made since 9/11

about what we would do as a nation, how we would spend our resources, how we would react to those 9/11 attacks, for all of the things that have received no debate, the things that really have been debate ready the invasion of iraq, i guess of the iraq and afghanistan wars as well, and torture the tactics the united states turned to in both interrogation and detention. >> the enhanced interrogation program. >> enhanced interrogation program. but interrogation tactics used either as an abuse of existing policies or in keeping with policies, and the fact that nobody high-ranking was ever prosecuted for those things. >> it just fell on the shoulders of the young guys and a few women who were involved in these procedures. >> to describe what to do is a level of evil culpability. to let people know they're unhinged from the existing rules. geneva doesn't apply, your training doesn't apply do what you do. that is not only a different level of legal culpability, i believe it's still a crime and

it's still evil. but it destroys the people who end up torturing in those circumstances in a way that no directive ever could. it destroys them. >> people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. >> after 9/11, america goes to war. war against al qaeda, a transnational, subnational enemy. war against the tactic of terrorism. >> americans should not expect one battle. but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. >> afghanistan did not attack on 9/11. no nation did. but the u.s. moves quickly after 9/11 to topple the afghan government. >> we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them. >> a war on terror, a war on terrorism is a footing, a mind-set more than it is a plan. but toppling a government is the

work of soldiers on the ground. >> every nation now has a decision to make. >> putting soldiers on the ground fomenting war against afghan factions, even taking prisoners. >> either you're with us or you are with the terrorists. >> as small and secretive cia and u.s. military special forces unit pay and cajole, arm and coordinate afghanistan's rebel factions allegations surface of atrocities massacres at the hands of afghan war lords. "newsweek" reports hundreds of surrendering pro-taliban prisoners are killed in 2001 while being transported in overcrowded industrial shipping containers by order of a u.s.-backed war lord. american forces start taking prisoners by the thousands ultimately by the tens of thousands. it would soon take the u.s. military and its government down a path it had never gone before.

america holds prisoners at a former soviet site called bagram in afghanistan. later during the iraq war, saddam's former prisons like places at abu ghraib and taji become american prisons. the established black sites exist for five years before the president ever admits that they do. there is still never been an official accounting of where they were. one prison investigated for multiple deaths is a cia reported black site in afghanistan called the salt pit. beyond the secret facilities, the united states also specially builds a u.s. military prison not in the united states. and not near any physical battlefield, but offshore in a u.s.-controlled corner of a hostile communist country. nearly 800 foreign captives have passed through its doors but only six of its prisoners have been tried. the prison is still in business today. in your training as a military

police officer, were you trained in how to deal with prisoners of war? >> it was real brief and basic training about enemy prisoners of war. >> so you didn't have extensive training on how to deal with people who are going to be living under your control? >> no, not at all. >> months after 9/11, the military sends military police officer brandon neely as a guard to what is then referred to as a temporary detention center, camp x-ray at guantanamo bay in southeastern cuba. neely says he received no specialized training for the deployment. >> we were actually told that a facility like this had never been run before. there was no policy there was no procedure. >> with emotions running high and the rules of engagement unclear, neely says he is told by his supervisors to improvise. band donneilly takes custody of the second ever prisoner to arrive at guantanamo bay. >> started walking with him and he wouldn't walk. me and my escort partner were screaming at him you need to walk faster. we placed him on his knees. he jerked toward me.

i slammed his facedown on the concrete floor. they hog-tied him and he laid there for a couple of hours. when i left the camp that day he was still there. >> neely later learns why he might have recoiled the way he did. >> when we placed him on the niece, he thought he was going to be executed because he had seen people like that executed in his country. >> were there other things that you saw that were wrong? things you participated? >> they told a detainee put his hands on his head and started kicking and punching him. he lay there in a pool of blood. >> do you feel like if you had been in a command environment where you had been prepared and given specific procedures that things like that would have happened? >> i think if people had nor direction and we had time to actually train, a lot of the incidents may not have happened. >> a response to neely's allegations by the u.s. military reads in part "the department of defense does not tolerate the abuse of detainees, and credible allegations are thoroughly investigated and appropriate disciplinary action taken if allegations are substantiated

there have been well documented instances in the past where dod policy was not foonld service members have been held accountable for their actions in those cases." guards like brandon neely in america's prisons say they are left to make up some of the rules as they go along. but when it comes to trying to extract intelligence from mesh's post-9/11 prisoners, some trained u.s. military interrogators say they are told to unlearn the training that they do have. >> we were given what is called an interrogation rules of engagement by the pentagon, and it detailed interrogation methods that would certainly have been against geneva conventions. >> in 2004 after extensive training as an army interrogator, tony lagarans spends ten months interrogating terror suspects in prisons. >> had you been trained in what legal limitious couldn't cross during an interrogation? >> yeah. we were taught strictly

according to geneva conventions. >> so you were taught how to treat people as enemy prisoners of war, but when you got to iraq -- >> after 9/11 and afghanistan, we had heard from interrogatoriers coming back that they were crossing line, the use of stress positions sleep deprivation dietary manipulation. >> and those were in the in the rules of engagement that were communicated to you in writing? >> yes. >> according to him some but not all tactics were approved by a superior officer. did it seem like it was legal? >> in we were told it was legal by the pentagon, of course we weren't going to question that too far. it said specifically that the interrogator needs to have the freedom to be creative in the interrogation booth. >> told to make it up? >> yeah we were just going to make it up. we wanted to get intelligence. and so we were willing to cross these lines. >> did you think of it as torture at the time? >> i didn't really think of it as torture. i certainly do now. >> according to lagaranas

prisoners are left cold and wet without adequate clothing, on purpose, in order to induce hypothermia. >> what would be the medical factor? what would be the impact on them in terms of interrogation? >> it's not a good interrogation tactic because they become so cold that they become confused. and they can't really follow a lynn of thought. they're not reasoning very well. >> how do you not accidentally kill somebody when you're playing with something like hypothermia? >> frankly i'm surprised we didn't kill somebody. >> were dogs part of the way you were treating prisoners? >> we were using military working dogs. this was up in mosul. we would agree on a concern cue that i would give. and on that cue, the dog handler would make the dog bark and jump and lung at the detainee. the detainee was blindfolded. he had a sandbag over his head. so he didn't know the level of control that the handler had over the dog. the dog was muzzled and on a leash so, it was safe. but the idea was to scare the

detainee. >> and it would have that effect? >> oh, absolutely, yeah. >> had there been a clearer command environment about what was expected of u.s. military personnel in that environment, could torture have been avoided? >> i worked in detention facilities all over iraq. and where there were clear guidelines from the command, torture didn't happen. it seemed like there was a real willingness to do it. and i don't know what that says about people. but people were often enthusiastic about it. and nobody said no. >> and you didn't? >> i didn't, no. you sort of become isolated there. you're in this community. and your morals kind of shift along with the people that you're working with. and you're sort of morally confused. but when you watch it on television and you see the moral outrage that was happening in the united states, i was able to see myself in a bit of a different light. >> did you ever send things up the chain of command or to

investigators, either regret something you had done or your offense at something you had seen being done? >> about halfway through the year while i was in iraq i started having a crisis of conscience, and i didn't like what we were doing. they had stepped it up to where they were burning these guys. they were breaking their bones. i spoke to cid which is the criminal investigations of the army. a lot of it had to do with the scandal. >> in the spring of 2004, reports of torture at abu ghraib prison began surfacing, reinforced by photographs depicting physical and psychological abuse by u.s. military personnel. >> it became much easier after the scandal broke to refuse to do any kind of torture at all, because people were afraid at that point. >> lagaranas says the harsh tactics used result in little more than fear and anger. >> it's counterproductive to make the person you're trying to get talk to you hate you. in my experience, having used

torture quite extensively as an interrogator, it does not work. >> why do it, then? >> i think often we use torture because we're trust raid, we're ainge risks and it's not necessarily about getting intelligence. it's not about being productive. it's about torture for torture's sake. coming up, building a new american playbook from a surprising source. >> this is the enemy's techniques. these are written in blood. ♪ ♪♪ ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ]

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